R. Adama Cowley died October 27, 1991, at the
age of 74 at his home, of a heart ailment. His memory was praised by a
bevy of Maryland political leaders, among them Governor William Donald
Schaefer and former Governor Marvin Mandel, at services yesterday at the
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Lutherville, Maryland. The
services were videotaped so they may one day be seen and appreciated by
Dr Cowley's infant son, R Adams Cowley 2nd, who was a month old yesterday.
Dr Cowley's survivors also include his second wife, Roberta Schwartz Cowley
of Baltimore; a daughter, Kay Cowley Pace of Santa Cruz, California.; 3
grandchildren; and 11 great-grandchildren. Internment was at Arlington
National Cemetery in Virginia.

It had been while Dr Cowley was an Army surgeon
just after World War II in Europe that he first began developing his ideas
about quick treatment of the seriously injured people. Dr Cowley developed
the idea that there is a "golden hour" just after a serious injury, during
which prompt and coordinated medical treatment can save lives. He began
with a two-bed research unit at the University of Maryland Hospital in
1961, and worked to build his dream, living to see the opening in 1989
of the eight-story Shock-Trauma Center in Baltimore, which was named for
him.

Representative Helen D. Bentley, R-2nd, called
Dr Cowley "one of the greatest figures in modern medicine . . . around
the world." She also said he was a visionary "decades ahead of his time."
Mandel, who has been credited with intervening to bring Shock-Trauma into
existence, testified to Dr Cowley's unique qualities. "He was arrogant,
determined, stubborn and difficult to get along with," but he had to be,
Mandel said, to see his dream through. Schaefer said he was thinking as
he peered from his car window on the way to the funeral that "there will
be an accident somewhere today, and a life will be spared," because of
the system that Dr Cowley set up. "He was a driven man, a perfectionist,"
but he put Maryland on the medical map, Schaefer said.

He was buried in Section 1 of Arlington National
Cemetery.

Doctor
Cowley's stone in Section 1 proclaims:

Next To Creating A Live The Finest Thing A
Man Can Do Is Save One -- Abraham Lincoln.

A cardiothoric and trauma surgeon who, through
his creation of shock trauma in Maryland, saved thousands of lives and
changed the face of emergency medicine in the world.

Father of trauma medicine and founder of the
nation's first shock trauma center, in Baltimore, MD.

Leader in the scientific study of shock and
trauma *

Creator of the concept of the "Golden Hour,"
the 60 minutes following injury when definitive care is critical to a trauma
patient's survival.

Leader in the use of civilian helicopters for
medical evacuation.

Pioneer in hyperbaric medicine and open-heart
surgery.

Inventor of electronic pacemaker prototype
and a surgical clamp bearing his name.

A founding father of the Society of Thoracic
Surgeons.

Founder of National Study Center for Trauma
and EMS Enacted by Congress in 1986.

Personal papers collected by the University
of Utah.Elder in the Mormon Church.